Hartley Electorate Road Upgrades

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (14:47): My question is to the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government. Can the minister update the house on the intersection upgrades in the Speaker's electorate of Hartley?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:48): The whip is obviously seeking to curry favour. That is a wise move—although, with his use of the whip, I think that we should all do as we are told anyway.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I would like to hear this.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: I am pleased to update you, sir—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —especially considering we took the opportunity only in the last few days to go across and have a look at the progress on some of the commitments we made at the election and also how this last budget has also added to those commitments as we deliver to improve better traffic solutions in the beautiful eastern suburbs, in the electorate of Hartley certainly, visiting down Gorge and Silkes roads and looking at the progress that has been made there in terms of the number of designs.

In fact, seven different designs have been put in place for how we fix that intersection, and it is certainly one that has been made more complex by the building of the Aldi supermarket there. I think it is a great opportunity to be able to fix a bottleneck that has plagued residents along Gorge Road for a long time as we whittle down those different options. Going out and chatting to the community on what is best for them and what they think is the best solution to put on the table I think is quite exciting and long overdue for a congested part of our road network.

We then move across to the Newton-Graves intersection. There is a lot of progress that is being made on that intersection, too. The planning and design work is done and the land acquisition is also in its final stages, so much so that construction will be starting in a few short weeks' time. In fact, we were down there and able to see there's spray paint on the ground already detailing what changes are going to be made there. That will be finished in the new year. Again, it is an intersection in a part of town that has been neglected for a long time. This is an intersection where, even as we were there, there were a couple of—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —near misses—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens, be quiet.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —where we saw that the turning interactions between different types of vehicles were quite dangerous.

The installation of a separate left-hand turn and right-hand turn lane from Graves onto Newton; the installation of a new right-hand lane from Newton Road, coming off and going onto Graves Road, to make sure that the Newton Road traffic actually can flow freely; the removal of a pedestrian-actuated crossing just little bit further down by the church so that we don't increase the level of congestion for the through traffic, are also pretty important, as well as a solid median and provision for cyclists, which we always do when we undertake these projects.

We then took the opportunity to go down to Portrush and Magill roads to look at our $98 million commitment to fixing one of the major bottlenecks on Portrush Road—a section of road that looks after 62,000 cars a day—and the opportunity especially for those people travelling inbound on Magill Road, a huge opportunity to get them past a troublesome intersection much more quickly. Again, for all the very important heavy vehicle freight, as well as passenger vehicles heading down Portrush Road, there is the opportunity to remove a key bottleneck in our road traffic network.

These are but small parts of the huge program that this government has put on the table to address traffic congestion across Adelaide, and I am glad that we are getting on and delivering what we promised people at the last state election.